The military justice system's failure to share critical information with civilian law enforcement agencies is far more rampant than initially believed, the Pentagon's independent watchdog has found — in some cases nearly a third of the time.

After former airman Devin Patrick Kelley shot and killed 26 people in a rural Texas church last month, the Air Force admitted it had not followed the procedure to alert civilian authorities to Kelley’s domestic violence conviction while in uniform — something that would have prevented him from being able to buy a gun.

But the problem is far more widespread, the Pentagon's inspector general reported Tuesday. It found a series of "troubling" things when it reviewed 2,502 cases across all four military branches between Jan. 1, 2015 and Dec. 31, 2016.

Of those, fingerprint cards were not submitted to the FBI in 24 percent of the cases and a final disposition report was not submitted in 31 percent.

The military is required to submit data to the FBI when service members are convicted of a number of crimes, including drunk driving, stalking and kidnapping. That information is then included in a federal database that is checked when someone tries to purchase a gun.

The Air Force actually performed better than the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, the new IG report found. For example, it failed to submit fingerprint cards and final disposition reports in only 14 percent of convictions, the report found.

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The Navy and Marine Corps didn’t submit fingerprint cards in 29 percent of cases and the Army did not submit a final disposition report in 41 percent of its criminal convictions.

“The failure to populate FBI databases with all the required fingerprint records can result in someone purchasing a weapon who should not," the report says. "It can also hinder criminal investigations and potentially impact law enforcement and national security interests. It is therefore troubling that many fingerprint cards remained missing.”

The IG made several recommendations, including that the military services each review their criminal investigative databases dating back to 1998 to ensure all paperwork is submitted to civilian agencies and they implement greater oversight of the reporting process.